Philippines Count Flusters Parliament

February 11, 1986|By United Press International

MANILA, PHILIPPINES — Parliament, its galleries jammed with thousands of chanting supporters of opposition candidate Corazon Aquino, met Monday to decide the outcome of the fraud-tainted presidential election. It made no progress.

Parliament adjourned for the day, bogged down in procedural questions, four hours and six recesses after it met -- without counting a single vote. Aquino warned the Marcos-dominated body, charged with declaring a winner, that its count will be closely watched.

Conflicting, unofficial results of Friday's election showed both Aquino and President Ferdinand Marcos ahead in the race, which was marred by charges of vote-buying, intimidation, ballot box theft, unexplained counting delays and a tabulation scandal.

Washington broke its silence on the election as a White House-appointed observer panel flew back to the United States to report its findings to President Reagan.

''We're concerned,'' said White House spokesman Larry Speakes. ''But the outcome of the election is not clear and the facts are not in.''

Tension was high in Manila after a gunman riding in a Mercedes Benz pulled alongside a truck carrying 30 Aquino supporters and opened fire, killing one man.

At least 127 people have been killed in two months of election violence. The government, fearing campus unrest, ordered Manila schools to remain closed today for the 14th straight day.

Aquino supporters chanting ''Cory, Cory'' packed the galleries of the National Assembly -- the Batasan Pambansa -- and another 8,000 supporters of both candidates rallied outside. Riot police formed a phalanx between the two fist-waving groups.

One poster urged, ''Marcos: Why not follow Duvalier,'' referring to last week's flight of Haitian President Jean-Claude Duvalier.

''Let me be absolutely clear,'' Aquino told 5,000 supporters at a prayer rally. ''We are going to take power. The people have won this election. The only question left is when I shall take power in their name.''

Aquino warned members of the parliament, where Marcos' party holds a two- thirds majority, to be honest.

''The people will watch the Batasan's every move and I serve warning to its members they must act like the representatives of the people they claim to be. There will be no room for a dictator's puppets in the new Philippines,'' she said.

Nearly four days after the polls closed in the election, called by Marcos 16 months ahead of schedule amid U.S. criticism of his handling of a communist insurgency, two unofficial vote tallies differed significantly.

An independent watchdog group, the National Citizens Movement for Free Elections, or Namfrel, said Aquino was leading with 6,658,838 votes, or 53 percent, after 60 percent of the ballots had been counted. The U.S. delegation had expressed confidence in the Namfrel tally.

But the government Commission on Elections, Comelec, which has tallied only 28 percent of the nations 86,036 precincts, showed Marcos winning 51 percent of the vote.

The U.S. observer team issued a damning report on the election.

''The word clean is absolutely foreign and obviously not appropriate to what we have observed,'' said Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar, head of the observer group.

Some 30 computer operators at the Comelec headquarters walked out Sunday, charging votes for Aquino they were feeding into the system were not being shown in the tabulations.

The walkout added fuel to Aquino camp charges that Marcos was attempting to rig the outcome of the election, which were echoed by the U.S. observer group.